How do you know when they started and when they finished, their outcome, etc. Do others, non-tenchical folks, need access to that or is it just the developers?
Cron has the capability to set environment variables. The scripts/programs can check those variables and then have the ability to adjust the type and quantity of logging according to whether they are run as cron jobs or from the command-line.
The logging of these jobs goes to a specific log file which is rotated daily. The daily logs are kept for 10 days before being discarded.
For instance this is a cron entry. Note the logfile argument as $1.
# update BAK_MONTHLY on 2nd of the month only
24 09 2 * * /home/jvs/binscripts/rsync.bak.monthly.xpz /var/log/cronlog_jvs
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - edit the master and reinstall.
# tell cronjobs that they are running under cron
CRONJOB=CRONJOB
# specify the logfile for cronjobs output
LOGFILE=/var/log/cronlog_jvs
# expand the path
PATH=/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/bin:/home/jvs/binscripts
#
# m h dom mon dow command
#!/bin/bash
#jvs script
#
# DATE WRITTEN ......
#
# This crontab item does ........
#
#Set variables
TARGET=
NOW=$(date +%y%m%d)
DAY=$(date +%d)
LOGFILE="/tmp/${HOSTNAME}.crontab-item.log"
if [ "$1" != "" ]; then
LOGFILE="$1"
fi
touch "$LOGFILE"
chmod 666 "$LOGFILE"
echo -e "#######################################################\n " >>"$LOGFILE"
/bin/date +"%F %H%M" >>"$LOGFILE" 2>&1
echo "$0" >>"$LOGFILE"
### ***************************************************
### ******* Guts of crontab item goes here ********
### ***************************************************
# Say when this item completed
echo -e "\n$0 Completed at $(date)" >>"$LOGFILE"